RANGER AGAINST WAR: Peasant Management 101 <

Friday, November 14, 2008

Peasant Management 101


Simple Simon went a-fishing for to catch a whale;
All the water he had got was in his mother's pail.

Simple Simon went to look if plums grew on a thistle;

He pricked his fingers very much which made poor Simon whistle.

He went for water in a sieve but soon it all fell through;

And now poor Simple Simon bids you all "Adieu"


Ranger Question of the Day:

Since housing values have fallen,
has your local tax board reassessed and lowered
your tax burden lately?

____________

Daniel Schorr's essay on NPR today speculated upon the drastic drop in consumer spending over the last few months. He posed the question: what if, after "recovery", America is no longer the "Shop 'Til You Drop" economy?

What got us to this point was a heapin' helpin' of greed and stupidity, a lethal combination. From Econ 101, Ranger recalls that wealth is created from the production of goods and services. Somehow, in our slick new post-colonial (right), post-national world, we got the idea that we could conjure up wealth simply from wealth. The financial vehicles created are well beyond Ranger's pay scale, but he can see that it was a shell game, a Ponzi scheme, to create wealth without production of goods or services.


Two months+ on and we are still being sold a bill of goods, told that somehow these overvalued pieces of paper will turn a profit for the government which purchases them. Right back where we started from.


What is to be done? Ranger is a small unit type of leader and all thoughts move in that direction. Just speaking from the personal level of responsible living, it is evident that neither local, state nor federal governments have acted responsibly. A standard has to be modeled for the people to follow, and
profligate has been the flavor of the last several years.

Living without economic pain is living within one's means. This used to be
de riguer. School primers, Boy Scouts, Goofus and Gallant. . . you get the idea.

Some Real Simple Ranger ideas:


  • If you can't feed 'em, don't breed 'em. That goes for livestock or people. Restrict family size.
  • Pull in your perimeter
--Cancel your cell phone service or land line.
--Kill your direct TV; use only local stations
--Limit your credit card expenditures to necessary items. Pay off monthly.
--Differentiate between "need" and "want," and eliminate most wants.
--Don't believe government and commercial propaganda
  • Drive fuel efficient vehicles, and drive slower.
  • Heat and cool your home to realistic levels. Put on a sweater or take off clothes in the Summer. Open your windows in the Spring and Fall, if feasible.
  • Talk to your neighbors. You are not alone.
  • Budget all expenses and buy what you can afford.
  • Shred credit card/cell phone offers before reading.

This doesn't jibe with a government that is telling you to SPEND. But having savings that will carry you for a few months is the only way to ensure a level of economic comfort.

Your government is not providing a sustainable template for economic health. Even in the most glaring and long-term of problems, it has not behaved responsibly. After 32 years of oil embargoes the U.S. has still failed to achieve a level of fuel efficiency in our vehicles or develop reasonable energy alternatives.


The days of cradle-to-grave protection are long gone. Did they lie to you, the Gods of the Marketplace? Yes, but you are too old to believe in magic. You've got to figure this one out on your own.



~~~If you have any personal suggestions, we're game to hear them~~~

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3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ranger...I like what you're suggesting.
Since my wife has been out of a job for dam near the past year, we've been, every month that is, eliminating an expense.
Sometimes the eliminated monthly expense was $80.00, the next month only $20.00, but eliminate them we did...and as the months wore on, we both discovered a wonderful thing...our monthly credit card bill dropped....a whole lot.
Now, we're still hoping she gets a job, but in the process, our debt load has certainly shrunk...and I think we'll be okay.
She still needs to get a job if we want to go on vacations, but we're not going to loose our house /whew!

But the key thing is this: I grew up in a house of want, even though my dad was in a great paying job, his and my mothers parents were depression era children, and they passed on the frugality to my parents. Who in turned passed it on to me and my siblings.
The one thing I told my wife when we bought our house, "I don't want to be a slave to our mortgage." and as it turns out...we're not.

Friday, November 14, 2008 at 11:35:00 AM GMT-5  
Blogger rangeragainstwar said...

sheerahkhan,
I believe the fed govt suck asses are going in the absolutely wrong direction with the PWOT and economy.

The economy cannot be fixed by stimulus-this is the problem and not the solution.We need to go cold turkey on China.IF YOU CAN'T AFFORD IT THEN DON'T BUY IT.period.

Economics is like the rifle company in the defense , as i've previously posted. You can't fight with all your resources forward. Nor can you live your life that way. Reserve forces are always required to blunt penetrations.Right now the nation is being over run- this is not a single containable penetration.Unless we fall back, consolidate , reorganise and redistribute ammo and units then we've lost the battle and the war.

You and your wife wisely redistributed assets before you became decisively engaged- you maintained your manueverability.
Good for you.A micro victory in the war on the paralyzed dumb ass attitude pervading Amurica..
Your friend , jim

Friday, November 14, 2008 at 11:47:00 AM GMT-5  
Blogger bigbird said...

My parents came of age during the Depression, although being from immigrant families they didn't have too much during the twenties to begin with. I was brought up resourceful and thrifty.

I thought that I could squeeze a dollar pretty good until I met my wife and her family. Dutch Calvinists have an almost pathological fear of being on the naked side of a dollar bill; pay for everything in cash and pay off the mortgage as quickly as possible. I was out of all debt in my late forties. Trust me, it's more fun managing assets than debt.

I graduated B-School circa 1970 and can look at money in some abstract ways. What went on with the derivatives blows my mind. Wall Street provides a lot of people with well above average salaries for passing around pieces of paper, and I'm not talking about the hedge fund manager level. Buying and selling derivatives is reminiscent of the bucket shops where you bet on the market without having any money in the market.

I've seen several real estate cycles, although this bubble is in a different league. My wife and I did go out on a limb when we bought our present house in 1981 with a 15 1/4% mortgage and the housing market was depressed. We had fine penciled the income tax effects of the interest and property taxes and went for our dream house. When the interest rates came down we refinanced and of course the house values went back up. Never did we get involved with home equity loans or exotic mortgages. With all of the cheap mortgage money I can appreciate how people got sucked in, but buying at the top of the market? I always thought you only bought on someone else's misfortune.

Friday, November 14, 2008 at 2:08:00 PM GMT-5  

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